174 UAVEXPOKT ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES. 



but, although we dug down into them to the depth of fourteen feet 

 in one instance, and very deep in all cases; and although we worked 

 in six different mounds, no encouraging indications were met with. 



The ground was exceedingly hard, and composed of clay, which, 

 though somewhat mixed, did not present any other evidence of ever 

 having been disturbed, or of having been used as a burial place by 

 the mound-builders. In one of them we found the bones of an In- 

 dian, buried near the surface; but beyond this, no bone or anything 

 else but clay and roots was found, and we gave up the search. 



June 24th, 1881. — Regular Meeting. 



The President, Mr. J. D. Putnam, in the chair. Eleven members 

 present. 



Mr. W. J. McGee, Farley, Iowa; Prof. .1. K. Macomber, Ames, 

 Iowa; Prof. J. Henry Comstock, Washington, D. C; and Mr. Tyler 

 McWhorter, Aledo, 111., were elected corresponding members. 



SEPTEilBER 30th,. 1881. REGULAR MEETING. 



Prof. ^y. H. Barris in the chair. Five members present. 

 The following papers were presented: 



Oxytheca — Two ^ew Species from Southern 

 California. 



BY C. C. PARRY. 



Oxytheca, a genus established by Nuttall, over forty years ago, 

 on a plant then considered peculiar to the interior arid districts of 

 North America, Ijut which somewhat later, under different names, 

 was also strangely met with in remote districts in the S(juth Ameri- 

 can Andes, rested for a long time upon this single species ( O. den- 

 droidea^ Nutt.). 



In the more recent revision oi the Er'uxjonttv by Torrey and Gray 

 [Proceedings Amer. Acad. Vol. VIIJ, p. 190], the genus was con- 

 firmed by two additional species from the same intericjr districts. 



Subsequently, in Vol. II, Botany of California, Mr. Sereno Wat- 

 son completes the latest view of the genus by two other additions, 

 making, in all. Hve species. 



